STOCKTON - The corner of Oak and American streets on the northeast fringe of downtown Stockton long has been one of the city's more dangerous intersections.

Last month, a man in his 20s was shot in the left leg at the intersection, and at 4:45 a.m. Sunday, a 34-year-old man was grazed by a bullet on his right forearm as he walked at Oak and American.

Less than six hours later, gunfire erupted again at the same street corner. This time, though, it was deadly. A 22-year-old man was killed by several bullets in a drive-by shooting at 10:15 a.m., Stockton police said.

Officer Joe Silva, a police spokesman, identified the victim as Eric Madison, the city's 68th homicide of the year. Silva also confirmed Sunday the death one day earlier of 19-year-old Victor Ibanez, wounded Wednesday in a drive-by shooting on East Anderson Street.

Silva said there are no suspects in either homicide, and he added that during the investigation of Sunday's killing, officers were met with hostility when they attempted to interview residents of a neighborhood police say is a hotbed of drug and gang activity.

"Not only were the people in that neighborhood not providing officers with information, they were also acting belligerently toward our officers by yelling obscenities," Silva said.

"We want to help citizens eliminate crime in their neighborhoods but when you have people acting belligerently, yelling obscenities at our officers, not providing officers information, it's making it that much more difficult for us."

The long-troubled neighborhood's problems ignited anew over the past week.

Tuesday, the corner of California and Lindsay streets - six blocks from Oak and American - was the scene of a lunch-hour gunbattle that left one person wounded and the street strewn with 22 shell casings. In the three-plus hours that followed Tuesday, there were four more reported shootings in Stockton, and police think some of them may have been related.

After Sunday's homicide, a group of neighborhood residents sat on the porch of an apartment on American Street. The porch, protected by wrought-iron bars, provided a clear view of the crime scene. The residents occasionally watched the police doing their investigation, but just as much of their attention was on a television they had moved to their living-room window so they could keep track of the San Francisco 49ers game.

A young woman who identified herself as Gloria Escalante said she's lived in the apartment a bit less than one month. She said she hears gunfire frequently.

"It's scary, it's dangerous, a lot of gunshots," Escalante said as she watched the police. "But nothing like this. This is my first time seeing a crime scene."